


False Comfort

by surena_13



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-02
Updated: 2012-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-30 12:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surena_13/pseuds/surena_13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Comfort</p>
            </blockquote>





	False Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine.

A weak sound slowly brings Maya out of her sleep. A takes her a few moments to realize that it’s a voice, softly singing the ancient language of the Gods, the gentle tones carrying for in the silence of the night. Turning around she’s sees Laura, holding Isis, rocking her as she walks small circles, bringing the child back to sleep with the soothing words that are foreign to Maya’s ears.

 

Even in the weak light, she can see the expression on Laura’s face, see the look in her eyes. It’s a sight that never fails to take her breath away. She reminds her of the statue they had on Sagittaron of the goddess who created the first human, the first child and was then cast out by the Lords for creating something so innocent and yet so powerful.

 

Laura walks over to the crib and carefully places the sleeping Isis in it, covering her with the threadbare blanket. She softly strokes her cheeks with a single finger, before she bends down and presses an impossibly soft kiss on Isis’ forehead. Wrapping her own blanket tightly around her body, Laura walks back to her bed and stops dead in her tracks when she catches Maya watching her.

 

“Did I wake you?” she whispers before she crosses the short distance to Maya’s bed and sits down on the edge. Maya smiles at her while she stretches. She pushes herself into a sitting position, holding her blanket close to protect herself from the cold night air.

 

“No. Well, yes, but it’s okay. Was she crying? I can’t believe I didn’t wake up.”

 

“She wasn’t crying, but she was stirring. I thought I would get her back to sleep before she woke you. I guess that plan backfired.” Laura looks apologetic as she casts a glance in the direction of Isis. Maya doesn’t say that she is grateful, that Laura is the only one that can settle Isis down. She wonders sometimes what the Cylons would have done if the baby had cried every night and she had been unable to get her to quiet down.

 

“S’okay. I like hearing you sing. I like your voice,” she admits and suppresses a smile when she sees the mildly shocked expression on Laura’s face. She almost looks adorable.

 

“You do?”

 

“Yeah, it’s kind of soft and low. It’s comforting.” A silence settles over them that makes Maya feel uncomfortable. She seeks for something to say, something to break the quiet. “Isis likes it. She didn’t wake you, did she?”

 

“No, I was still awake,” Laura confesses and looks away, knowing Maya hates it how little she sleeps.

 

“You should get some sleep.”

 

“Yes, and so should you,” Laura retorts and leans down to kiss Maya on her forehead. The brush of Laura’s lips is so soft against her skin that Maya barely feels it. She can help but sigh softly at the touch of her lips, at the feeling of Laura hand against her cheek. Before she knows it, it’s gone and Laura is walking back to her bed, curling herself up on the mattress, blanket wrapped tightly around her, her back to Maya.

 

Maya lies on her side, looking at Laura’s resting form, thinking about how much has changed between the former president and herself since they were forced to share a tent on New Caprica. She was terrified to live and sleep in the same tent with the former president of the Twelve Colonies, prophet, survivor of cancer, most respected woman left in humankind and definitely one of the most beautiful women too.

 

She hadn’t known how to act around her, felt the ridiculous need to courtesy every time she saw Laura, just because her mere presence demanded that she’d be respected. Laura, however, hadn’t made any fuss at all. She had treated her like a friend, a confidant, had gotten up at night to calm down Isis, changed her diapers with being asked to and had even given Maya a job at the school she had started. They lived  well together, had their daily routines. It was almost a good life. And then the Cylons came.

 

A depression had settled over the settlement, it could be felt in every person, but Maya could feel and see it most in Laura, though she suspected that other people didn’t. In front of the children and the parents she was still miss Roslin, strict, but also always up for a joke and laugh. She appeared just as carefree and as happy as she had before the Occupation.

 

But as soon as everybody was out of sight and she was alone in the classroom or in their tent, there was slump in her shoulders and the light left her eyes. Maya could see the pain and the loss etched on her face, could see the tears form in Laura’s eyes every time she was informed of another death, another disappearance. She often found Laura staring up into the heavens, thinking of Admiral Adama, hoping for his return.

 

She started praying more, twice, three times a day, begging the Lords of Kobol to give a means of escape, to stop her people from suffering, to give her hope in this hopeless situation, to give her answer to the one question they both knew, would never be answered. Why?

 

Maya can hear Laura’s breathing evening out and for a moment she is relieved that Laura is finally sleeping. For the past few weeks, it’s a good thing if Laura gets one of two hours of sleep. But then Maya remembers that it will take ten minutes, maybe twenty before the nightmares start. Laura never says she has them, but Maya knows she does.

 

More than once she has woken up to the sound of Laura crying in her sleep, mumbling barely understandable phrases where she is pleading for the lives of her people. Sometimes Laura wakes up screaming and Maya is terrified to know what she dreamt about, but she never asks and Laura never tells. She simply gets up and watches Isis sleep. And every time Maya prays for the courage to comfort Laura, to help her get through the nights, but she has not yet received it.

 

In the silence of the tent she hears a whimpering coming from Laura’s bed, soft sounds of pain. Maya tenses in her bed, holding on to her blanket tightly. She can’t stand the sound of Laura in pain, can’t bear to think of the images that are flashing through the woman’s mind. Biting her bottom lip, she tries to will away the noises, to no avail.

 

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she shivers against the cold. Doubting if this is a wise decision, Maya looks at Laura’s trembling form and she knows it is. She takes her own blanket with her as she walks over to Laura’s bed. Tentatively she places one hand on the woman’s shoulder, but she doesn’t wake up. In the darkness, Maya can see the tears that have rolled down her cheeks.

 

Carefully she sits down on the bed, sliding closer to Laura’s body as she lies down next to her. Wrapping an arm around Laura’s waist, she curls her body around Laura’s, her torso pressed tightly against Laura’s back, throwing her blanket over the both of them as she starts to hum lullaby she has forgotten the words to and she feels Laura’s body slowly relax and the soft crying stops.

 

“I dreamt that they took you, us. They brought us to the detention center. There were so many people there, so many wounded, some dead, others tortured to insanity. The Cylons were proud of what they done. They took pleasure in showing me that I had failed to protect the people from them. They said there weren’t going to touch me, they were going to make me watch. And then they took you,” Laura whispers, her voice trembling. Maya can only hold her closer as she listens to Laura telling her nightmare for the first time.

 

“Ssh, it’s alright,” she says softly, brushing away a few strands of auburn hair. “It was only a nightmare. Everything is alright,” Maya lies. It’s false comfort and they both know it. They both know that one day the Cylons will come for Laura, especially since she has gotten involved with the insurgence. But false hope and the memory of comfort is all they have now.

 

“I know it will,” Laura says, her voice almost back to normal, covering Maya hand with her own and giving it a soft squeeze. Maya smiles weakly into Laura’s hair as she caresses the woman’s stomach through the layers of clothing. “Thank you.”

 

“For what?”

 

“For being here.”


End file.
